Frankly Speaking: Will Israel ever end its occupation of Palestine?

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Updated 26 February 2024
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Frankly Speaking: Will Israel ever end its occupation of Palestine?

  • Israeli journalist Gideon Levy accuses Israel of dehumanizing and demonizing Palestinians
  • Believes any Israeli leader would choose occupation over normalization with Saudi Arabia
  • Calls on his country to choose between being a democratic state or an apartheid one

DUBAI: With the war in Gaza heading toward its sixth month, some are wondering if there is any end in sight to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. What is certain, however, is that Israel carries out a policy of dehumanization of Palestinians to justify its occupation, according to one of Israel’s most famous journalists.

“Israel systematically, from its first day, dehumanized and demonized the Palestinians in order to maintain their occupation, to maintain even the creation of the state of Israel,” Gideon Levy said.

He said Israel “is very efficient in manipulating propaganda and brainwashing all over the world,” and is “the only occupier in history which presents itself as a victim.”

Levy, who has spent over four decades as a journalist writing for the Israeli daily Haaretz covering mainly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, made these remarks on the Arab News current affairs show “Frankly Speaking.”




Gideon Levy has spent over four decades as a journalist and columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz. He spoke to Katie Jensen, the host of “Frankly Speaking,” the Arab News current affairs show. (AN photo)

Levy has been harshly critical of Israel’s actions, particularly those carried out in the wake of the Hamas attack in southern Israel in October 2023 which resulted in 1,200 deaths and the kidnapping of 240 people. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 30,000 people, many of which are women and children, have been killed so far in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.

Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, have been putting pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire or scale back its offensive. The Kingdom has made the establishment of a Palestinian state a prerequisite for any normalization deals, with Israeli officials keen on the idea of improved relations with Arab states.

Levy, however, doubts that any Israeli prime minister, including current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would go that far.

“I don’t see them … putting an end to the occupation,” he told Katie Jensen, host of “Frankly Speaking.”

Israeli politicians might be hoping for a repeat of the 2020-2021 Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize relations with the UAE and Bahrain.




Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (2-R) grins from ear to ear after signing the so-called Abraham Accords with Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al-Zayani (L) and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (R), brokered by the US government under President Donald Trump (2-R), at the White House in Washington, DC, on Sept. 15, 2020. (AFP/File)

Israel quickly also normalized ties with Morocco and Sudan.

“Maybe they also hope that, like in the Abraham Accords, in which they got quite a good deal without changing the policy toward the Palestinians, only by all kind of lip services for this,” he said.

“I think that all the candidates for being prime minister in Israel, not only Netanyahu but also the opposition, would still prefer to maintain an occupation rather than to have normal relations with an important country like Saudi Arabia.”

Even beyond the Arab world, Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has triggered international backlash, including South Africa’s landmark court case against Israel in the International Court of Justice. However, Levy sees most of this as empty words.




This photo taken on January 26, 2024, shows the International Court of Justice panel assembled in The Hague during the reading of the genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel over its attacks on civilians in the Gaza Strip. (X: @CIJ_ICJ)

“Sympathy toward the Palestinians is very deep rooted among the grass roots, but I don't see many leaders really care about the Palestinians. Unfortunately, they fall between the chairs for many years now, when many statesmen give their lip service about solidarity with them, but finally almost nobody is doing for them anything and they are left quite alone, especially in (the) last years,” Levy said.

“Yes, there is a lot of talking going on; condemnations, resolutions, rulings, rules, hearings, many, many things. There is only one thing lacking, and this is action. That is, taking measures.

“The world never took real measures and the US, in particular, never took any measures to promote its interest, to promote its ideas. The US claims that it wants to see this war ended. And (at the same time) it is supplying Israel with more ammunition and more arms.”

Israel has learned “that you can very easily ignore the talk and stick to its policy, because Israel doesn’t pay any price for its policy,” Levy said.




A shipment of 155mm artillery shells supplied by the US for use by the Israeli army is transported on a truck along a highway between the Jerusalem and Beersheba in southern Israel on October 14, 2023. (AFP)

With Palestinians themselves and leaders across the world calling for peace, Levy is not certain that peace should be the top priority when it comes to talks on Palestine, but rather justice for the Palestinian people.

“I am calling for justice, not for peace … maybe peace will be the bonus that we’ll get out of it. But I am not sure that two people are ready for peace, but there is one people who deserve justice. And this must be pushed by the world.”

From 1978 to 1982, Levy worked as an aide and spokesman for Shimon Peres, the then leader of the Israeli Labor Party. In 1982 he began to write for Haaretz, and later worked there as a deputy editor.

He has long written of his support for a one-state solution in which Jews, Arabs, and all citizens have equal rights — a controversial opinion among both Israelis and Palestinians.

“There are 700,000 Jewish settlers in the occupied territories. Nobody is going to evacuate them. And there is no viable Palestinian state with 700,000 Jewish settlers, part of them very violent, all of them very ideological. I don’t see (a two-state solution) happening.”




Objects are scattered more than a week after Jewish settlers attacked the occupied West Bank village of Wadi al Seeq on October 24, 2023. (AFP/File)

He added: “If not the two-state solution, what is left? Only the one state … the only problem is that it’s not a democracy.

“I have to tell my fellow Israelis, you can’t have it all. If you wanted a Jewish state, you had to pull out from the occupied territories a long time ago.

“If you want a democratic state, you should give up the Jewish state because you cannot have it both, because there are two peoples here. Either you are an apartheid state or you are a democracy.”

As the Israeli bombardment continues across the entirety of Gaza, many Palestinians have begun to lose hope in their own officials. Even one month prior to the start of the most recent Israel-Hamas war, 78 percent of Palestinians wanted the resignation of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to a poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.




US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Feb. 7, 2024, during a Middle East tour, his fifth urgent trip to the region since the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza erupted in October. (POOL / AFP)

Observers now speculate whether there could be a replacement for Abbas, one that could carry out reforms and to revitalize the PA.

For Levy, jailed Palestinian dissident Marwan Barghouti could be a contender.

“He was the only one who would really unite the Palestinian people, Hamas and Fatah, together. I believed also that he is a man of peace. And he proved it in many ways,” he said.

Barghouti was arrested by Israel in Ramallah in 2002, and two years later was sentenced to five cumulative life sentences on five counts of murder.

“I hope he’s still capable of leading the Palestinians. I don’t have a better idea. I’m not sure Hamas will accept him today. Twenty years ago, yes, (but) I’m not sure today,” Levy said.

“I’m a great believer of him. And because I believe in him, and because so many people believe in him, Israel will never release him. And that’s so tragic.”




The portrait of jailed Palestinian dissident Marwan Barghouti (R) is seen along with that of the  late South African president Nelson Mandela at an office in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Barghouti, in Israeli custody for nearly two decades after being convicted over multiple killings during the second intifada, is being compared to Mandela, who successfully led the resistance to apartheid in South Africa. (AFP/File)

Particularly since October, the popular rhetoric in Israel has increasingly turned against Palestinians, something that Levy blames on a combination of racism and dehumanization.

“If you conduct such a brutal occupation over so many years, if you teach your soldiers and your young people, generation after generation, that there is nothing cheaper, and there is nothing cheaper than the life of a Palestinian, I can tell you, if the Israeli army would have killed so many dogs as it did (people) in Gaza, it would be a huge, huge scandal in Israel.”

In addition to this, Israeli news media, which Levy explains “doesn’t cover the suffering of Gaza,” has played a role in inflaming racist attitudes in the country.

“They know Israelis don’t want to see it, don’t want to hear about it. It’s an outcome of decades of brainwashing, decades of humanization; as I said before, decades of demonization of the Palestinians.

“Israelis don’t meet Palestinians anymore at all, because of the barrier of the (West Bank) separation wall. There’s almost no contact anymore between the two peoples,” Levy said, explaining that the Oct. 7 attack has led Israelis to lump all Palestinians in the same category as Hamas and the perpetrators of the attack.




Participants run past a section of Israel's controversial separation barrier during the "Freedom of Movement Palestine Marathon" in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on March 10, 2023. (AFP/File)

“We are in a very, very low moment in history. And obviously the racism is now politically correct in Israel. It's enough to have one attack, like this terrible attack on the 7th of October, to make all the incorrect political ideas as politically correct.

“Because after what they have done to us, most of Israelis think, we have now the right to do and say whatever we want, because of those horrible things they did.

In the minds of Israelis now, Levy said, “all Palestinians must take responsibility for the October 7 crimes, all of them took part in it.”

 


Israel passes law that would allow it to deport the families of Palestinian attackers

Updated 59 min 18 sec ago
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Israel passes law that would allow it to deport the families of Palestinian attackers

  • They would be deported, either to the Gaza Strip or another location, for a period of 7 to 20 years

JERUSALEM: Israel’s parliament passed a law early Thursday that would allow it to deport family members of Palestinian attackers, including the country’s own citizens, to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip or other locations.
The law, which was championed by members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and his far-right allies, passed with a 61-41 vote but is likely to be challenged in court.
It would apply to Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of annexed east Jerusalem who knew about their family members’ attacks beforehand or who “express support or identification with the act of terrorism.”
They would be deported, either to the Gaza Strip or another location, for a period of 7 to 20 years. The Israel-Hamas war is still raging in Gaza, where tens of thousands have been killed and most of the population has been internally displaced, often multiple times.
It was unclear if it would apply in the occupied West Bank, where Israel already has a longstanding policy of demolishing the family homes of attackers. Palestinians have carried out scores of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years.
Dr. Eran Shamir-Borer, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute and a former international law expert for the Israeli military, said that if the law comes before the Supreme Court, it is likely to be struck down based on previous Israeli cases regarding deportation.
“The bottom line is this is completely non-constitutional and a clear conflict to Israel’s core values,” said Shamir-Borer.
Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for their future state. It withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 but has reoccupied parts of the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack triggered the war.
Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move not recognized by most of the international community. Palestinians there have permanent residency and are allowed to apply for citizenship, but most choose not to, and those who do face a series of obstacles.
Palestinians living in Israel make up around 20 percent of the country’s population. They have citizenship and the right to vote but face widespread discrimination. Many also have close family ties to those in the territories and most sympathize with the Palestinian cause.


Israel strikes Lebanon after discussing ‘Iranian threat’ with Trump

Updated 07 November 2024
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Israel strikes Lebanon after discussing ‘Iranian threat’ with Trump

  • The Israeli army had issued evacuation orders ahead of the strikes
  • Hezbollah had pledged the result of the US election would have no bearing on the war

JERUSALEM: Israel launched fresh strikes on south Beirut early Thursday, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US president-elect Donald Trump spoke about the “Iranian threat.”
The Israeli premier was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump, calling the re-election “history’s greatest comeback.”
Over the phone on Wednesday, the pair “agreed to work together for Israel’s security” and “discussed the Iranian threat,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Not long afterwards, the Israeli military launched its latest strikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah’s main bastion of south Beirut, with AFP footage showing orange flashes and plumes of smoke over the densely populated suburb.
The Israeli army had issued evacuation orders ahead of the strikes, calling on people to leave four neighborhoods, including one near the international airport.
In Lebanon’s east, the country’s health ministry said Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed 40 people, with rescuers combing the rubble for survivors.
“The series of Israeli enemy strikes on the Bekaa Valley and Baalbek” killed “40 people and injured 53,” the ministry said in a statement.
Hezbollah had pledged the result of the US election would have no bearing on the war, which escalated in September as the Israeli military widened its focus from Gaza to securing its northern border with Lebanon.
In a televised speech recorded before Trump’s victory but aired afterwards, new Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said: “We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight.
“What will stop this... war is the battlefield,” he said.
Qassem, who became Hezbollah secretary-general last week, warned that nowhere in Israel would be “off-limits.”
Hezbollah announced Wednesday it had Iran-made Fatah 110 missiles, a weapon with a 300-kilometer (186-mile) range that military expert Riad Kahwaji described as the group’s “most accurate.”
The group claimed a slew of attacks on Israel on Wednesday, including two that targeted naval bases near the Israeli city of Haifa and two near commercial hub Tel Aviv.
Hezbollah began its low-intensity cross-border campaign last year in support of ally Hamas after the Palestinian militants’ October 7 attack on Israel.
Israel escalated its air raids on Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley from September 23, sending in ground troops a week later.
More than a year of fighting in Lebanon has killed at least 3,050 people, the health ministry said Wednesday.
Ceasefire efforts
Efforts to end the conflicts in Gaza and neighboring Lebanon have so far repeatedly failed.
While US President Joe Biden’s administration has piled pressure on Netanyahu to agree to a truce, Washington sustained its political and military backing of Israel.
Many see Trump’s White House return as a possible boon for Israel.
All US presidents “are in favor of the State of Israel,” a man in east Jerusalem told AFP, asking to be identified only by his nickname Abu Mohammed.
Under Trump, “nothing will change except more decline.”
During his campaign, Trump touted himself as Israel’s strongest ally, going so far as to say Biden should let Israel “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.
“Trump’s return to power... will lead us to hell and there will be a greater and more difficult escalation,” said a school principal in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Recent surveys have shown that a majority of Israelis, 66 percent according to one conducted by Israel’s Channel 12 News, were hoping to see Trump triumph.
Analysts said Netanyahu also wanted Trump’s return, given their longstanding personal friendship and the American’s hawkishness on Iran.
During his first term in office, Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights and helped normalize ties between Israel and several Arab states under the so-called Abraham Accords.
But some experts cautioned against prematurely assuming Trump’s position on “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.”
“It’s not necessarily clear that he would kind of just stand aside while Israel continues to de facto annex the West Bank,” said Mairav Zonszein from the International Crisis Group.
Prospects of Peace in Trump’s US
Egypt, the first Arab state to sign a peace deal with Israel and one of the mediators in the stymied Gaza truce talks, also congratulated Trump.
President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi told Trump in a call that Cairo would work with him “to contribute to stability, peace and development in the Middle East.”
In Gaza, where the war has displaced most residents, caused widespread hunger and death, and devastated hospitals, some clung to hope with a change in the US administration.
“There’s nothing left for us, we want peace,” said 60-year-old Mamdouh Al-Jadba, who was displaced to Gaza City from Jabalia.
The UN said Wednesday its polio vaccination campaign in Gaza had ended, with more than half a million children vaccinated despite the war.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that started the war resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,391 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.


Israel, WHO say evacuated dozens of Gazans for medical care

Updated 07 November 2024
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Israel, WHO say evacuated dozens of Gazans for medical care

  • The WHO said the “patients included those with autoimmune diseases, blood diseases, cancer, kidney conditions and trauma injuries”

JERUSALEM: Israel and the World Health Organization said more than 200 Gazans, both patients and their carers, were evacuated to the United Arab Emirates or Romania Wednesday for medical treatment.
In total, the group numbered some 230 people, according to the WHO and COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories.
“This is the largest number of patients and caregivers who have left through the Kerem Shalom crossing in recent months,” COGAT said in a statement.
The operation was carried out in cooperation with the UAE, the European Union and the WHO, it added.
The WHO said the “patients included those with autoimmune diseases, blood diseases, cancer, kidney conditions and trauma injuries.”
The patients were transferred from Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Israel, and then to Ramon Airport near Eilat in southern Israel.
The WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, had said Tuesday that those on the evacuation list were among up to 14,000 people currently waiting in Gaza to be evacuated for medical reasons.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,391 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to Gaza health ministry figures which the United Nations considers to be reliable.
The ministry also lists 102,347 people as having been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began.
Peeperkorn said Tuesday that fewer than 5,000 people had been granted medical evacuations out of the territory since the war began.


Gazans want Donald Trump to end war

Updated 07 November 2024
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Gazans want Donald Trump to end war

  • Israel demolishes seven Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, declaring them ‘illegal’

GAZA, JERUSALEM: Palestinians in Gaza want Donald Trump, who won the US election, to end the war between Israel and Hamas that has devastated their territory.

“We were displaced, killed ... there’s nothing left for us, we want peace,” Mamdouh Al-Jadba, who was displaced to Gaza City from Jabalia, said.

“I hope Trump finds a solution, we need someone strong like Trump to end the war and save us, enough, God, this is enough,” said the 60-year-old. “I was displaced three times, my house was destroyed, my children are homeless in the south ... There’s nothing left, Gaza is finished.”

Umm Ahmed Harb, from the Al-Shaaf area east of Gaza City, was also counting on Trump to “stand by our side” and end the territory’s suffering.

“God willing the war will end, not for our sake but for the sake of our young children who are innocent, they were martyred and are dying of hunger,” she said.

“We cannot buy anything with the high prices (of food). We are here in fear, terror and death.”

For Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, where violence has also surged since October last year, Trump’s victory was reason to fear for the future.

“Trump is firm in some decisions, but these decisions could serve Israel’s interests politically more than they serve the Palestinian cause,” said Samir Abu Jundi, a 60-year-old in the city of Ramallah.

Another man who identified himself only by his nickname, Abu Mohammed, said he also saw no reason to believe Trump’s victory would be in favor of the Palestinians, saying “nothing will change except more decline.”

Imad Fakhida, a school principal in the main West Bank city of Ramallah, said “Trump’s return to power ... will lead us to hell and there will be a greater and more difficult escalation.”

He added: “He is known for his complete and greatest support for Israel.”

During his campaign for a return to the White House, Trump said Gaza, which is located on the eastern Mediterranean, could be “better than Monaco.”

He also said he would have responded the same way as Israel did following the Oct. 7 attack, while urging the US ally to “get the job done” because it was “losing a lot of support.”

More broadly he has promised to bring an end to raging international crises, even saying he could “stop wars with a telephone call.”

In Gaza, such statements gave reason for hope. “We expect peace to come and the war to end with Trump because in his election campaign he said that he wants peace and calls for stopping the wars on Gaza and the Middle East,” said Ibrahim Alian, 33, from Gaza City.

Like many of the territory’s residents, Alian has been displaced several times by the fighting. He said he also lost his father to the war.

“God willing the war on the Gaza Strip will end and the situation will change,” he said.

Meanwhile, municipal workers demolished seven homes in occupied East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood on Tuesday, Palestinian residents and the municipality said, after an Israeli court called their construction illegal.

“This morning the Jerusalem municipality, with a security escort from the Israel police, began its enforcement against illegal buildings in the Al-Bustan neighborhood in Silwan,” Jerusalem’s Israeli-controlled city hall said in a statement.


UN says Gaza polio vaccination campaign complete

Updated 06 November 2024
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UN says Gaza polio vaccination campaign complete

  • The second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip was completed Tuesday, with an overall 556,774 children under the age of 10 being vaccinated
  • An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children are stuck in “inaccessible areas” in the north and “remain unvaccinated”

JERUSALEM: The UN said Wednesday its Gaza child polio vaccination drive was complete, with more than half a million children vaccinated despite the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Palestinian territory.
The World Health Organization and the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF launched a second round of vaccinations in northern Gaza on Saturday after Israeli bombing halted an earlier attempt to do so.
“The second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip was completed yesterday (Tuesday), with an overall 556,774 children under the age of 10 being vaccinated with a second dose,” said a joint statement.
It “is a remarkable achievement given the extremely difficult circumstances the campaign was executed under.”
Israel’s military has pounded northern Gaza for weeks in a major offensive it says is aimed at stopping Hamas militants from regrouping.
An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children are stuck in “inaccessible areas” in the north and “remain unvaccinated and vulnerable to the poliovirus,” the UN organizations said.
The vaccination campaign had been a “success,” according to a statement Wednesday from COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that manages civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories.
The drive began on September 1 with a successful first round, after the besieged territory confirmed its first polio case in 25 years.
Typically spread through sewage and contaminated water, poliovirus is highly infectious.
It can cause deformities and paralysis and is potentially fatal, mainly affecting children aged under five.
The vaccination campaign was managed primarily by UN agencies including the WHO, UNICEF and UNRWA — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
Last month Israel’s parliament adopted a law banning UNRWA’s activities on Israeli territory.
The aid agency remains “the largest primary health care provider in the Gaza Strip,” according to Louise Wateridge, UNRWA’s senior emergency officer.
The WHO said Saturday four children were among six people wounded in a strike on a polio vaccination center in northern Gaza.
It was unclear who carried out the attack.
The UN agencies on Wednesday again called for a ceasefire.
“Humanitarian pauses... must be systematically applied beyond the polio emergency response efforts to other health and humanitarian interventions to respond to dire needs,” they said.